Fly, by Julie Innis
Not on the mouth, I tell him. I don’t know where your feet have been.
I thought we agreed, dip then lip, Fly says.
My research of foot-and-mouth disease says we need a dip of two parts bleach to water.
But Harold’s gone green and thrown out all our cleaning supplies, I explain.
Harold, my husband, had recently taken up with his yoga instructor. Toxic’s out, he said and I suppose this included me. Our marriage had been contentious for years. If not for the recession, I would’ve moved out weeks ago. Instead I quietly suffered through my days with New Harold, from his morning Sun Salutations to his evening Downward Dogs. His preoccupation with yoga postures and new Live and Let Live attitude are what’s allowed my Fly to stick around for so long. Old Harold would’ve nuked him in a cloud of Raid immediately upon sight.
I cup my hand gently around Fly and bring him up close to my cheek. He plants his feet wide in the center of my palm as he furiously beats his wings, setting off a tiny current of breeze that buzzes against my skin. It’s our version of safe sex, until I can find a germicidal dip that won’t kill him.
Fly says he’s disease-free, swears he’s strictly table scraps and high-end restaurant trash, but I’ve seen Wild Kingdom, seen the swarms of flies that lift and fall from the half-mauled carcasses of gazelle and wildebeest.
This is Manhattan, baby, Fly reminds me. You can trust where I’ve been. Full-disclosure, in my reckless youth, there might have been a wild night or two of road-kill. But I’m an adult now and carrion’s so low-rent. Déclassé.
Fly’s a striver from Brooklyn. Just a regular housefly, he says, though I know he fancies himself more a champagne-and-caviar type. A regular Mister Musca Fancy-Pants, I tease him and his thorax flushes red with embarrassment and pride. We met on a World Yacht dinner cruise. He’d been circling the shrimp platter while I was trying to decide between a runny Camembert or a moldy Gorgonzola. I was distracted, alone, my husband off checking the coat-check girl. My marriage is a sham, what does the freshness of my breath matter anymore, I figured, drowning my sorrows with cube after cube of odoriferous cheese.
You wield a mean toothpick, Fly said as I skewered another cube. I like finger strength in my ladies.
You’re pretty funny for a fly, I said.
You’re pretty beautiful when you laugh, Fly said.
Cheese? I offered, holding out my cube.
No thanks. I’ve got my eye on that oyster, need to get my strength up.
It may have been the lighting, but I swear he winked as he said this.
What a rascal, I said, flipping my hair back to reveal my bare shoulders.
Fly spent the rest of the evening whispering sweet nothings to me, his tiny feet tickling at my ear lobe. So attentive, so entertaining! What ecstasy, what bliss! I forgot completely about Harold until it was time to disembark and he came back to our table, my coat already in hand. I didn’t bother to ask if he’d tipped her. What a loser, Fly buzzed into my ear.
Come home with me, I told him.
I thought you’d never ask, he said.
At first I took things slowly; after all, a relationship with a fly isn’t viable for the long haul—their short life span, the diseases and high maggot potential during hot summer months. Surely a woman in her prime could do better? I asked myself more than once.
Fly understood, said he didn’t want to hold me back. Spread your wings, he said.
So I tried other men. I did Tom, Dick, and Harry, then Tom again, twice. Sure, the sex was great, but it lacked the passion, the frisson, the eye to compound-eye contact I had with Fly.
I knew you’d come around, Fly said when I told him I was ready to be exclusive.
But how can you be so sure? I asked, nervous, vulnerable.
Pheromones never lie, he said, ducking his head slightly towards one wing. Fly doesn’t have shoulders to shrug, which made his modesty in that moment even more appealing.
You complete me, I said, letting my breath play softly across his wings.
He shivered, his body buzzing. Oh baby, he gasped, shuddering once, twice before slipping into a deep sleep.
Good for you, my friends tell me. They know what kind of husband Harold’s been. What an asshole, they say. They’ve all taken lovers of their own—personal trainers, masseurs, pizza delivery boys. Still, I worry that perhaps an interspecies relationship is doomed. So I do my research, I read my women’s magazines, I watch my daytime talk shows. Oprah says we must take love wherever we can find it.
Open your heart, Oprah says, Let love in.
I start by telling Harold to move into the guest bedroom. I tell him it’s because of the yoga instructor, but really it’s because Fly’s jealous and has in the middle of more than one night threatened to throw himself deep into the abyss of Harold’s snoring mouth. I want to choke him to death, Fly says.
But it would kill you too.
For you, my sweet, I would gladly give my life, Fly says.
Move in with me, I say, showing him the room I’ve made for him out of a half-empty jelly jar lined with newspaper.
The business section of the Times, Fly notes. Nice touch. You do love me, don’t you?
Yes, yes, I say, my voice rising, barely able to contain my joy.
What’s going on in there? Harold calls out from the other side of the bedroom door.
Fly and I just giggle, and I turn out the light.
The weeks pass as Fly and I settle into a comfortable rhythm—mornings with the Times after Harold goes off to work, then afternoon walks in the park, gallery-hopping, matinees, and later, dinners in the finest restaurants, then long evenings spent holed up in our bedroom, the sound of Harold’s sad shuffling just beyond the locked door. His yoga instructor dumped him, I tell Fly when he complains that the TV is on too loud.
I feel sorry for him, I say.
Not too sorry, I hope? Fly asks, his voice cracking slightly.
No, not at all, I say, meaning it.
I can’t think of a time when I’ve been happier, but the germicidal dip issue remains unresolved and I start to worry that I’ll lose Fly forever if we don’t take our love-making to the next level.
I’ll be so gentle, Fly says, teasing his way across the inside of my wrist, my pulse rapid beneath my skin. You think this feels good? Imagine how good my feet will feel against those sweet sweet lips of yours.
I gasp for air. We’ve talked about this, I protest, my voice weak with desire.
You know you want it, Fly says, going in for the kill.
That afternoon I buy a pack of anti-bacterial baby wipes. Stop if it burns, I beg, spreading one out for Fly to walk across.
Ooo, he says, hopping from leg to leg. It hurts so good, baby. Then he lifts himself up into the air, circling twice around my head and once down the long slope of my naked body before coming in low to land at the crest of my upper lip.
Oh, I moan. Fly, Fly.
Careful with the back draft, Fly says, walking the perimeter of my lips, savoring their plump center before beating his wings in the divot at their peak.
But just as I’m bringing my back into a full arch, Harold storms in. It’s midday and I hadn’t bothered to lock the bedroom door, hours to go before he’d be home from work, I’d assumed, blind to the warning signs of his mounting suspicions. Ah-ha, he yells, a baseball bat in hand, his eyes wild as he scans the room for signs of my noon-time lover.
I’m so startled that I forget Fly’s warning and with one sharp gasp, he’s gone, sucked deep into my mouth, my swallow reflex too powerful an instinct for my reason to override.
No, no, no, I wail, clawing at my throat. Fly! I gasp, my face red, my eyes full of tears, my windpipe spasming shut.
What the fuck? Harold says, clearly confused by my apparent solitude and sudden onset of choking. He’s never really noticed the little things, I think, as he drops his bat and encircles me with his arms.
I go limp as he begins administering the Heimlich. One, two, three thrusts to my diaphragm as I pray for a miracle. But it’s too late. The most I manage to bring up is a burp of hot empty air. I’ve lost him, my love, my Fly. I swallow once, sadly, and turn away.
I’m here for you, Harold says, his hand heavy on my shoulder.
Please, just go, I sob, already missing the lightness of Fly’s touch.
The days of mourning pass slowly. Harold takes sick leave from work and brings me hot tea and toast in bed. I don’t bother explaining to him about Fly. It’s not like he’d understand. He says he’s ready to work on our marriage, that he wants us to see a counselor. I agree, too grief-stricken to protest the futility of it all. My heart will never be his. He wants to move back into the bedroom, but I refuse. It’s too soon, I say. I let him think it’s because of the yoga instructor. He tells me he’s a patient man, that he’ll wait.
I’m waiting also. At night I lie awake in the dark, my hands pressed to my stomach, and wait for a buzzing to be born.
